Easy-Build Large Vegetable Planter

Here’s a vegetable planter that is strong, easy to build, and large enough for a number of garden projects.

- Max Stone

Tools and supplies

• Bench mitre saw (recommended), or alternatively a tool for cutting wood such as a circular saw or jigsaw
• A small and large square, protractor and clamp
• Cordless drill
• 10mm wood drill bit
• 3m tape measure
• Scissors
• Staple gun
• Two trestles will help if you don’t have a workbench.

Materials list

• 4 side panels; 220 x 1200mm
• 2 end panels; trapezoid 220mm wide, 536mm long edge, 198 short edge, 52.5° angle
• 2 end panels; isosceles triangle 198mm long side, 163mm short sides, 75° angle
• 4 legs; 900mm to centre of 37.5°angled cut end

For supplies, you’ll need three 20 x 220mm 2.4m pine boards, two 32 x 67mm 1.8m pine boards, 28 6 x 50mm screws, two 10 x 100mm bolts with nuts, and four large washers. To finish, you’ll need to sand the wood, apply a suitable weatherproof coating and line the interior with 2 x 1m porous landscape membrane. One 10kg bag of stones for bottom drainage and two bags of 60dm potting soil is sufficient to fill the planter.

This vegetable planter is easily adaptable to different sizes, with the one I designed based on regular pine timber available from many hardware stores in South Africa. It can be built in a couple of hours, using little more than a suitable wood cutting tool, a small protractor, and a cordless drill.

Cut the parts